


Chronic

by kittybenzedrine



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8888791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittybenzedrine/pseuds/kittybenzedrine
Summary: You take a lot of damage, in a superhero's line of work.It tends to make your bones ache.





	

Sometimes Ben wonders if he's going to fall apart at the seams. It seems like a silly notion, sometimes. He's young and healthy and his body is strong and able. But still.

He wraps his knee, sore and tender from an injury he received in battle. It hurts if he puts his weight on it. He's got so much of it, though, so much heaviness to his body. He's so tall, with so much muscle and meat clinging to his bones, it amazes him that it doesn't hurt his other leg when he favors it.

It's relatively better two days later, but he focuses more on the jagged, searing slice under his eye and on his cheek. He cleans it as best he's able when he and his siblings return home, and hopes it won't scar. He wakes up later, whimpering from the pain, and has to peel himself from the pillowcase. The cut reopened in his sleep, and his blood stuck his skin to the fabric. Allison is still awake when he takes the soiled case to the laundry room, and she helps him remove the worst of the stain with ice water, peroxide, and baking soda.

A week later, Ben flexes his left hand into a fist for Klaus, and Klaus is torn between looking at Ben's fingers, and the ragged, uneven ugly scar down his arm. Ben's ring and pinky finger barely respond to the movements. He tells Klaus that yes, the two fingers still have minimal feeling, and no, he still can't move those fingers. It's been that way for five years, he reminds his brother, and that probably won't change.

The weather changes and grows cold; his bones start to ache more and more. His hips creak when he walks, his back screams when he gets up in the mornings. He finds himself teary when he wakes up, every joint in his body pulsing with pain. He steals a painkiller from Klaus' room and swallows it dry, and his body feels almost normal by the time he sits down for breakfast.

Ben ends up with a cracked jaw and a concussion from a nasty fall. It heals; life carries on. It warms up, and then the temperature drops again. His lower jaw joins the symphony of pain that his body conducts, and he ends up on a steady diet of pain killers and aspirin to hold it off.

Some nights, when it gets too bad, he'll sit up with Mom and watch her sew. Her seam ripper pops individual stitches one at a time, slowly separating one piece of fabric from the other. He wonders, with a sudden darkness, if that's what's going to eventually happen to his body. If he's just going to fall to pieces, with each of his body's stitches being torn and removed at a snails pace.

The Horror itself is the only comfort he truly has, when the painkillers and warm baths and cold packs fail to soothe his pains. It touches his face with the tips of its tentacles, unsure of how to ease the suffering its flesh vessel without pity killing him.

It touches him, instead. It's a soothing presence, running over the tops of his thighs and caressing his arms. He can feel it in more than one way. The feedback he gets from the beast tells him it feels nice for it as well, and it's doubly nice for him. He manages to fall asleep for a few hours in relative peace.

Of course, there's always a second side to the coin. In battle, he falls to his knees and vomits from the pain, clutching his gut. It feels like he was shot. He sees two feet of a tentacle wiggle on the ground and then go still, leaking inky black blood. He pukes again, with more of the black blood running between his fingers. The Horror screams, echoing its pain to Ben. Diego covers him and keeps him from getting stabbed by the guy who sliced off the tentacle, and Ben goes straight to bed when the finally get home.

His bones are loud as always, making their discomfort clear to him, and the Horror roils beneath his skin, still pained, still tender and hurt. Ben closes his eyes and lets as much tension out of his frame as he can without crying.

19 is too young for this shit.

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhhhh chronic pain. My favorite! 
> 
> (that was sarcasm)
> 
> I have [my blog](http://iwillpooponthefloor.tumblr.com) on tumblr, if you'd like to check that out.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
